1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates generally to a clothes drying augmentation device designed to accelerate the drying process in a conventional clothes dryer.
2. Description of Related Art
With the increased awareness of environmental issues and of energy conservation, a device which expedites the drying process in a clothes dryer is desireable and quite beneficial. Any device, particularly one which itself uses no energy, which decreases the time required to dry a given load of clothes also decreases the amount of energy necessarily expended on such drying and is beneficial to the long range goal of conservation of energy. In addition, such a device would have notable convenience considerations because of the time savings implications for the user.
Presently, the drying of clothes in a clothes dryer is an inefficient and energy intensive process. The operative process of a clothes dryer simply involves augmenting the evaporation of water from damp garments or other fabric items. In the conventional clothes dryer, this augmentation is achieved through the passage of large volumes of heated air through the clothes dryer drum. As the turbulent, heated air passes over exposed surfaces of damp garments, water on garments is gradually vaporized. In addition, contact between damp fabric and the heated surfaces within the dryer drum raises the surface temperature of damp fabric and thereby further facilitates vaporization of water from fabric surfaces. Vaporized moisture from the garments is carried from the dryer drum as the heated air is exhausted. Eventually, the garments are sufficiently dry to wear or place away.
Substantial quantities of electricity or natural gas are consumed in heating the dryer drum surfaces and the air which circulates through the drum. Because at any given time a small portion of the collective surface area of garments within a clothes dryer are exposed to the heated air or the heated surfaces within the typical dryer drum, the drying process is far from efficient. That is, the air exhausted from the clothes dryer has contacted only a small portion of the damp garments' collective surface area and is not saturated with moisture to the extent otherwise possible. As a consequence, minimum drying cycle time sufficient to adequately dry the exposed surfaces of garments in the clothes dryer is insufficient to dry the concealed surfaces which are an unavoidable by-product of the relatively compact dryer drums of typical domestic clothes dryers. Accordingly, some portion of the damp garments in a conventional clothes dryer must be "over-dried" in order to adequately dry the remainder. To the extent that this situation can be averted, energy savings can be achieved and time consumed in attending to laundry can be reduced.
One possible avenue for addressing the above-referenced problems might involve very large clothes dryers. Such dryers would permit garments a "looser" arrangement and thereby a greater exposure of damp fabric surface area to heated air and drum surfaces within the dryer. This, in turn, would increase the speed and efficiency of the clothes drying process. Alternatively, clothes dryer users may achieve substantially the same result by placing very small loads in a conventionally sized home clothes dryer and thereby achieve the same garment surface area to drum volume ratio with the attendant advantages.
Extremely large dryers are not practical in most domestic environments because of space limitations and expense. Also, drying numerous small loads for short periods of time is not within the tolerance levels of most consumers nor necessarily advantageous, from an overall economic or environmental standpoint.
An alternative approach, and that to which Applicant's invention is addressed, involves increasing the collective heated surface area within a given clothes dryer drum. With the conventional domestic clothes dryer, there are only three heated surfaces with which garments are in contact in the dryer drum: the front (door) surface, the rear surface, and the annular drum surface. There is typically a wide ratio between the collective surface area of the drum's heated surfaces and that of the average load of garments or fabric items placed in the clothes dryer. As that ratio is narrowed, the over-all evaporative process within the clothes dryer is accelerated. The drying augmentation device of Applicant's invention provides additional heated surface area within a given clothes dryer drum.